Photo: Dutch Photo Agency
Formula Regional European Championship title challengers Andrea Kimi Antonelli and Martinius Stenshorne incurred minor penalties from the stewards after Saturday’s race at Zandvoort for two highly unusual offences.
Stenshorne received a reprimand for wearing a watch during the race, in contravention of the FIA International Sporting Code, Appendix L, Chapter 3, article 5, “which prohibits the wearing of any kind of jewellery, including bracelets or watches, during competition”.
This is the same article of the Sporting Code which caused consternation when Formula 1’s race director Niels Wittich sought to enforce the prohibition on jewellery more strictly at the start of the 2022 season.
The Zandvoort stewards’ decision notes that “when the driver of car #34 [Stenshorne] got out of the car, the technical delegate noted that [he] wore a watch”, helpfully clarifying that this was on Stenshorne’s left wrist.
Unsurprisingly, given the obvious evidence, Stenshorne made a timely admission to wearing a watch and escaped with a reprimand since his offence was “without sporting impact”.
Antonelli was fined €300 for failing “to properly operate the on-board camera system”.
Under FREC’s sporting regulations, competitors must be able to “provide officials with a memory card of a sufficient capacity to hold the images of the race they have just contested,” as recorded by the offical on-board camera system.
In Antonelli’s case, no images could be found on the SD card taken from his car at the end of the race.
Antonelli wasn’t the only driver caught out as MP Motorsport’s Victor Bernier received the same penalty for a similar offence.
No further action was taken in respect of potential start infringements by Antonelli and Stenshorne’s R-ace GP team-mate Tim Tramnitz noted during the race, leaving the final points positions unchanged.
In the lower positions, Arden’s Joshua Duerksen and Trident’s Nikhil Bohra each received 10-second penalties for activating push-to-pass too early at the safety car restart while Bernier will take a two-place grid penalty into race two of the weekend on Sunday for causing a collision with Duerksen into Tarzan.